Halloran named AAAS Fellow

Dr. Elizabeth "Betz" Halloran of the Center's Public Health Sciences Division and Vaccine and Infectious Disease Institute has been elected a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

Halloran is being heralded "for her integration of sophisticated mathematical modeling of infectious-disease dynamics with strong foundations in the design and analysis of field studies," according to the AAAS, the world's largest general scientific society and publisher of the journal Science.

Also a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington, Halloran is among the world's leaders in the field of biostatistics to evaluate vaccine efficacy and to study the spread of infectious diseases. During the last few years, she and her colleagues have consulted with federal and state officials and world health organizations to help develop plans to control potential pandemics, using mathematical models that predict the spread of disease and simulate intervention strategies to save lives. A book she co-authored, "Design and Analysis of Vaccine Studies" was just published. Halloran is also the founder of the UW's new Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases.

The 531 AAAS Fellows selected this year will be honored Saturday, Feb. 20, during the organization's annual meeting in San Diego. Other Center AAAS Fellows include Drs. Linda Buck, Mark Groudine, Maxine Linial, Paul Neiman, Gerald Smith, Denise Galloway, John Potter and Meng-Chao Yao.